


The heart is forever inexperienced.

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: 2014 Advent Calendar for a Filthy-Minded Athiest [24]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: First & only, M/M, Shaky pov, Spin the Bottle, mentions of Harry dating girls, terrifying amounts of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2842913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up and dating and falling in love.  Not necessarily in that order.</p><p>A "What Forever Is" story.</p><p> </p><p>Advent calendar challenge: Arguments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The heart is forever inexperienced.

Liam is seven when the question of girlfriends is raised for the first time. He knows what a girlfriend is, loosely, from movies and television, but he also knows that the things in movies and on television are make-believe. He's not sure if that holds true for girlfriends, the way it does for dragons and pirates. He doesn't think girlfriends are make-believe, however, because Harry has gotten himself one, inexplicably. Everyone knows that girls are carriers of cooties, even Liam.

He asks his mum about it. He won't ask the boys, who like to tease him when he doesn't know things. He did try asking Zayn, who almost never teases him, but Zayn hadn't known either.

His mum explains to him that girlfriends are friends who you love differently.

"Like holding hands?" Liam asks, because Harry held Claudette's hand when they queued up after recess.

"Like holding hands," she confirms. And because Liam is smart, he sits on this information for a few minutes, thinking it over.

Mummy and dad hold hands. Ruth holds hands with boys _all the time_. Uncle Dan holds hands with Uncle Jamie. Does that make Uncle Jamie a girlfriend? Uncle Dan said they are gay, he and Uncle Jamie, and Liam knows that means they are both boys who love other boys. Liam also knows that there are girls who love other girls, and people who love both boys and girls, and people who aren't boys or girls at all or who are but were born the wrong way.

But having things explained to him by grownups isn't the same as knowing things. Not really. Sometimes Liam needs to work these things out for himself.

"Can boys have boyfriends?" he asks. His mum says yes, of course they can, like Dan and Jamie. And Liam still has questions but he is satisfied for the time being with just this much.

At school, Liam explains girlfriends and boyfriends to Zayn. He probably doesn't do a very good job, but Zayn understands anyway, because he is much smarter than Liam. Too smart for Liam's good sometimes, but maybe not right now, because Zayn understands the things that Liam doesn't explain, too.

He asks, before Liam has even figured out if asking is okay: "Do you want to be my boyfriend?"

Liam says yes and they start holding hands in the queue at recess, and sit together at assemblies, and they stay boyfriends even after Harry and Claudette have broken up, and Harry gets a second, then a third, new girlfriend.

 

By the time they hit eleven and twelve, "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" don't mean the same things they used to. Now it's about passing notes and dances and kissing. The buildup has been steady but it's gone largely unnoticed by Liam and Zayn, for whom the difference between best mate and boyfriend has always been murky and not worth defining. They're still boyfriends and they'll always be best mates.

Niall turns twelve and hosts the first boy/girl party of their age. To Liam and Zayn, this doesn't mean much. They have sisters, after all. They are boyfriends, after all. But their whole world is changing around them bit by bit, and it has to catch them up eventually.

Abbie asks Zayn to play spin the bottle, so he does. Liam is outside with Louis and Andy talking about football and Zayn had come in to have a go at the Playstation but, well, she asked. So he sits in the circle and feels nervous for a reason he doesn't like to think about. Niall is the one who has to kiss Abbie, but Thema spins the bottle and it points at Zayn. Zayn thinks that he doesn't want to, but he also thinks _fuck it_ , and leans forward over his crossed legs. Liam yells where he stands in the open doorway, red-faced and embarrassed about the way everyone turns to look at him, but more mad than anything.

This is the first and only real fight they've had. They break up for three days during which they don't talk to each other. They are listless, untethered, morbidly unhappy without each other.

Zayn sends Liam a text after school on Monday, tiny digital screen in no way capable of conveying the depth of his loss, but too shy and dumbfounded by his shyness in relation to Liam to be any bolder, braver.

_miss you sorry :( x_

Liam doesn't text him back for what feels like hours and hours, during which time Zayn lays on his bed and thinks the worst things he can imagine, just for the way his stomach knots up more and more painful.

Liam was only mad because everyone knows they're boyfriends. Liam doesn't care who Zayn kisses. Liam is at the cinema right now with someone else, that's why he's not responding. Liam is at the cinema watching _Spider-Man 2_ with someone else, even though they said they were going to see it together this weekend. Liam is seeing _Spider-Man 2_ with someone else and holding their hand, and if Liam kisses someone else Zayn is going to punch himself in the face for being such a stupid _idiot_ all the time and thinking it didn't matter if he kissed someone else.

Zayn texts him again:

_id be so so mad if u kissed any1 else_

And again:

_don't kiss any1_

And again:

_LIAM? ? ?_

 

These are the days that will become legendary amongst their friends, in the long history of Liam&Zayn. The horrible half a week in which they are not fastened to each other. It is the most exciting thing to happen in their school that whole year, or so Louis will claim later, his voice lilting only slightly, so that it's impossible to determine whether he's being sarcastic or sincere.

These are the days in which Zayn will text and email and call endlessly, bothering the hell out of everyone and not being himself at all. Zayn is smart and stubborn and proud in ways that he doesn't realize at twelve years old. Zayn is already careful about reaching for things that he wants, about extending himself, exposing soft parts of himself that he would rather keep covered. Zayn will always be guarded and thoughtful and a bit quiet.

Except when it comes to Liam.

For Liam, Zayn will be doo-wop songs about no mountain high enough, no valley low enough. For Liam, Zayn will be stupid and schmoopy enough to say those things, too, and damn anyone who tries to mock him for it. For Liam he will be unendingly patient and demonstrative and tender, and if anyone tries to hold that against him, they can piss right the hell off. Liam will always be the person who Zayn leaves himself open and vulnerable to, because Liam will always be the person who can be trusted not to hurt him.

Without Liam, at twelve, at his most irascible age, Zayn can do nothing but reach out over and over again, hoping for some answering touch. When he can't get that in the relative safety of long distance, he tries in person. It is the scariest thing Zayn has done to date, which is one of the reasons why he knows he needs to do it.

It's Nicola who lets him in the house, rolling her eyes at the dramatics of it all. Zayn doesn't care one bit. All of Zayn's care is being used up already. He's got absolutely none to spare for what Nicola or anyone else thinks.

Liam's bedroom door is closed but not locked, and so Zayn doesn't knock. He just turns the handle and lets himself in, same as he's been doing for years. It does occur to him that maybe he shouldn't this time. That maybe, for the first time, Liam's door is closed against him as well as everyone else. But he hates that thought, and so he plows through it.

Liam is sitting cross-legged on his bed, watching television. He looks scared for a moment and then angry and then just sad. Zayn watches these feelings roll across Liam's features, easy to read as anything, as a book of nursery rhymes or a first year maths problem or his own slanty handwriting. Zayn watches Liam's face and he understands without having to have it explained to him.

"I'm sorry I almost kissed someone else," he says, balling his hands up into fists in the pockets of his hoodie. He stays near the door.

Liam keeps his face turned toward the television, mouth pursed up in a nervous kind of pout. He glances at Zayn again and again, though, out of the corner of his eye. "Did you want to kiss her?"

Zayn shakes his head, and he means it so much that he gives up on staying near the door and walks to the bed. He can't let Liam misunderstand this. He has to make sure Liam knows.

"You were going to, though," Liam says, and the look he gives Zayn this time is nervous.

"That's not the same thing, wanting to kiss someone and doing it anyway. It was a game. I was supposed to."

"You were not. You're my boyfriend. Mine," Liam says. "That means you don't kiss other people. And if it's a game where you're supposed to, that means you don't play."

Zayn's chest goes tight, like his heart has cramped up and taken his whole ribcage along for the ride. It makes him ache all the way down in his hands, Liam saying _mine_ like that.

"We've not kissed," Zayn says, once he can breathe through the pull of it. "I didn't know if you wanted to."

Liam frowns at him, and that hurts too, but at least Liam's looking at him properly now, instead of football highlights. "Did you want to?"

Part of being schmoopy and stupid for Liam is being honest with him, even when he doesn't want to be. Even when it would be easier and less embarrassing to lie. Being honest the way he knows that Liam is fearlessly honest with him. Trusting Liam not to hold Zayn's worst against him.

"I hadn't really thought about it," Zayn admits. "I know we're boyfriends. I know we've always called each other that. But it doesn't mean the same thing as it used to, does it? It's different now. I didn't think about it until then. Until you got angry at me."

"So what did you think about?" Liam asks.

Liam is so lovely and sweet and brave. It would be so easy to take him for granted, to overlook all of the wonderful, quiet things he does and not appreciate them, because he doesn't ask for thanks, because he doesn't realize sometimes that he even could.

Zayn sits down on the edge of the bed, facing Liam, who is possibly the best person on the whole planet, and says: "I always want you to be my boyfriend. I wanted you to be my boyfriend when it meant holding hands in the queue after recess. And I want to be your boyfriend now, when it means kissing. And I'll want to be your boyfriend when we're old and haven't been boyfriends for ages because we're married. I love you, Liam. Forever. Whatever that is."

Liam kisses him for the first time, and that's the end of the first and only break-up in the long history of Liam&Zayn.


End file.
